An online ergonomic evaluator for 3D product design

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wheel position, through a set of UI’s provided by the
system. These interfaces allows 3D rotation and
translation of the model with embedded SpinFire TM
API’s. Note that the system maintains the seat, the
steering wheel, and other part models as individual
components in an assembly, namely the car interior
setting, and thus, they can be freely manipulated and
transformed in 3D space. The user can change the
C.-F. Kuo, C.-H. Chu / Computers in Industry 56 (2005) 479–492
Fig. 9. 3D product customization using the online ergonomic evaluator.
Fig. 10. User is selecting a design from different car interior settings.
setting and inspect the result visually or using the
distance measurement function of the viewer until a
comfortable posture is obtained. Fig. 11 shows that the
steering wheel is highlighted after the user has clicked it
for the position adjustment. The wheel is moved to the
new position corresponding to a translation with
500 mm in each x, y, andz-axis, as shown in Fig. 12.
Finally, the user can switch to the first scenario by